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Opinion Column

A crisis far worse than the fiscal cliff

Munich RE is an insurance company: what progressives often consider a methodical, calculating, machine using cold, heartless data to maximize profits. In a report to fellow insurance companies, Munich RE noted that the number of weather-related losses had quintupled over the past thirty years. In October, the company said, “Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America.”

This was not some tree-hugging environmental group: this was from the folks that pay out for catastrophes, and they know the score.

You think the wrangling over the fiscal cliff is painful? Just wait until we feel a few more Hurricane Sandys.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo testified about Sandy this week, stating: “This is a 50-to-60 billion dollar event” — and he was referring just to the New York portion of the recovery costs. In New Jersey, Governor Christie predicts costs to be $40 billion. We spent $16 billion on Hurricane Irene last year. And Hurricane Katrina cost the U.S. economy an estimated total of $250 billion. Hurricane damage makes the fiscal cliff look like a speed bump. Estimates for recovery from future events are in the trillions.

Over the next few years, recovery from catastrophic weather will either explode the deficit or implode domestic spending … or both. After all the necessary, life-saving FEMA spending, we’re going to long for today’s debt-to-GDP ratio.

We are racing to the tipping point. Right now. Not in a generation. Today. 2011 set a new record for carbon dioxide emissions. We are warming the planet – we’re melting the ice sheets and rendering land unable to grow food. We’re seeing rising ocean levels, droughts, floods, hurricanes, power outages, food shortages, and the price spikes and resource depletion that come with all of the above.

The New York Times reports that taxpayers insure coastal buildings to the tune of $527 billion through the National Flood Insurance Program, which has liabilities of $1.25 trillion - second only to Social Security. That’s insanity, especially when we know what’s coming. A real cliff. An environmental and financial cliff.

Readers' Comments (1)

Lets actually right an opinion based on fact. No evidence exists that hurricane numbers or severity is associated with global warming. No or is any significant sea level rise been shown. Agricultural land loss is due more to overpopulation and poor land management not global warming. We generate enough food to feed all people. Food shortages are a political construct. Power outages are also in that category.

Ms. Granholms unfounded piece is a diservice to the real science going on in the field and reflects poorly on a state that would elect here as governor and a university that would hire her.